Slipping Away by Lesa Renae

Deputy Sara Parker vanishes while on patrol after reopening a cold case. Her cruiser is found abandoned on a frozen mountain road outside Sylva, North Carolina.

Sheriff Burke Scott calls in Special Agent Tessa Quinn of the North Carolina SBI. Brilliant and guarded, Tessa keeps her emotions locked down—until she’s paired with Deputy Scout Wilson.
Scout is mountain-born—broad-shouldered, steady, and dangerous in all the ways that matter. He knows every ridge and back road where a woman can disappear. He’s already failed someone he cared about, and he won’t survive failing again.
As clues lead back to Jackson Valley University and a string of quiet disappearances, they uncover something far more disturbing than murder: a man who believes he is the author. He doesn’t crave blood. He craves control.
And he’s been watching them.
The pull between Tessa and Scout is immediate—charged and impossible to ignore. But in these mountains, desire is a vulnerability. The closer they move toward each other, the closer they get to him.
When a blizzard traps them high on the ridge with a predator who doesn’t run—who waits—the line between hunter and hunted shatters.

In Sylva, women don’t just disappear. They’re rewritten.
And this time, he may have chosen the wrong couple to corner.